Guardians Of Alexander (Goldbane 1) by John Wilson
01/07/2003 . Source: Jane Palmer 

pub: Big Engine. 265 page paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-903468-09-4.

Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK.

check out website: www.bigengine.co.uk

Theopolytes, Alexander the Great's most trusted general, is charged with retrieving the treasure of Darius the Persian king and taking it to a secret location.

While he is doing this, Alexander dies, so Theopolytes defies the order of Ptolemy, founder of the Graeco Egyptian Pharaonic dynasty and decides to preserve the hoard in preparation for Alexander's second coming.

The premise here being that as Alexander's ability to cause destruction, slaughter and conquest on a scale perceived by some to be miraculous, the man must have been immortal. So could Hitler if you believe that - not a pretty prospect. Fortunately, in Alexander's case, there is the hint that this is due to alien interference.

The author has an accurate sense of period and place. How accurate, I am not qualified to judge. Inevitably it is difficult to put words into the mouths of characters who lived three centuries BC.

In such dangerous times, they might have had sense enough not to do or say anything that would create a compelling plotline. John Wilson depicts a brutal scenario inordinately full of torture, disembowelling and enough machismo to bother modern sensibilities. He manages to make the reader accept that the atrocities are genuine behaviour patterns of the first Ptolemy and Alexander's mother, Queen Olympias.

At least the violence here, however gory, is kept within context, though when the author describes how one of Ptolemy's men has a spear run up through his anus and out of his throat there is an element of gratuitous glee to it.

The characters are placed unobtrusively into context so it is not difficult to recall them whenever they crop up, the heightened action helping to pin them to a time and place. Many, like the disabled boy, Prych, are quite complex and Ptolemy revels in the attributes he tainted the name of his ancient Egyptian predecessors with.

While not pervaded with wit, the writing is workmanlike and readable, if a little leaden.

There is a very little to put ‘Guardians Of Alexander’ into the fantasy category, the only supernatural allusion being easily overlooked. No doubt this will be developed in the sequels. The book could just as easily slot into historical fiction.

This first volume of ‘Goldbane’ sows the seeds of an interesting premise and has the promise of developing into an intriguing trilogy. It can only be hoped that Big Engine continues as an imprint, albeit under new management, and is able to publish ‘Goldbane’ 2 and 3.

Jane Palmer